uh, the first.”
Niall nodded, feeling honored even though—face it—there wasn’t a whole lot of competition here. Jane was alienated entirely from her family, and Niall was the only member of Duncan’s who had a relationship with him. Mom had made no effort to stay in touch with any of them, and Duncan had rebuffed Dad’s one attempt to reconnect. Conall hadn’t spoken to Duncan in close to ten years. That left—ta da!—Niall.
“I’ll be an uncle,” he said, disconcerted by the idea.
His brother shared one of his rare grins. “Yeah, you will.”
“Huh.”
Still smiling, Duncan clapped him on the back. “Dinner?”
“Tomorrow night.”
“I’ll tell Jane.” With long strides, he headed across the parking lot.
Niall stood where he was, watching him go. Well, damn, he thought, and felt a funny ache inside. He might have labeled it as jealousy, except he didn’t want any of what Duncan had.
Still, a baby MacLachlan. Who’d have thunk?
HOMICIDE AND MAJOR CRIMES detectives almost never fired a gun outside of the range, where they were required to keep their skills sharp. The telephone and the internet were their tools. They spent a lot of time on hold. They talked. They listened. They pretended to understand and sympathize with scumbags.
Which was probably why Niall was a little slower than he should have been reaching for his Glock.
During a belated lunch break, he had pulled into the bank parking lot with the intention of going in to deposit a check. Before he could get out of the car, his attention was caught by the sight of a guy hustling out of the bank gripping the arm of a woman who was walking really, really close to him. The incongruous part was that with both hands she clutched a black plastic trash bag, stuffed full. And—oh, hell—she looked scared out of her skull.
At the exact same moment Niall’s brain clicked into gear, the guy looked at Niall’s car which, while unmarked, shouted cop car. Plain maroon, but a big, powerful sedan. Grille behind the driver’s seat. Serious radio antenna. Then his eyes met Niall’s and he lifted a handgun.
Niall flung open the door and dove out at the exact moment the passenger window exploded.
He snatched his Glock from the holster and groped for his radio. “Shots being fired. Bank robbery in progress,” he managed to spit out before stealing a peek over the trunk.
Another shot rang out. Brick chips flew from the wall a few feet from his head.
Damn, damn, damn. The guy had dragged the woman behind a minivan in the lot. He had a hostage, and he was seriously willing to do anything to get away. Including killing a cop.
Niall hadn’t taken a shot yet. He wouldn’t until he thought he had a good one. God. Even aside from the hostage, there were other people in the parking lot, businesses across the street, passing cars.
Niall swiveled on his heels and saw a woman who had gotten out of her RAV4 standing not fifteen feet away with the keys in her hand, her mouth forming a horrified O. He gestured vehemently, relieved when she gasped and threw herself out of sight around the front of the vehicle. Other people farther away were gaping, too freaking stupid to realize a stray bullet could catch them. A man came running out of the bank yelling, but ducked back when a bullet chipped more bricks inches from him.
Niall’s car jumped when another burst of fire found metal. He dropped flat to the pavement so he could see the feet beneath the minivan. Black bag, too. He wondered if the teller had gotten a dye pack in it. He grunted. Man, this was going to be a mess no matter how it played out. The FBI would be all over it, and who wanted to deal with them? Although he wouldn’t mind if they showed up right now.
The feet were moving. Toward the rear of the vehicle. So it wasn’t the guy’s minivan, or the woman’s, either. The guy was figuring to bolt for cover behind another car. Make his way to his own, maybe. Time was his enemy. He had to get away before more cops arrived and he got surrounded.
Sirens sounded, but not close.
Niall rose to a crouch and crab-walked forward, rounding the hood of his car. He snatched a quick look, his finger tight on the trigger, and saw that the guy had pushed the woman out into view. She once again clutched the trash bag in front of her as if it were a shield. Niall had never seen such terror on anyone’s face. Was she a teller? An unlucky customer?
Wait. Wait.
The guy appeared. Not enough of him—he was using the woman for cover. He took a wild shot to pin Niall down, but it was the back window of the car that imploded. Good. He’d miscalculated which direction Niall would move.
Wait.
Niall had never felt so steady, so cool. He was thinking, waiting with extraordinary patience, willing the instant to come when he could kill this bastard without unduly risking the woman.
There. The woman stumbled. Niall pulled the trigger and the Glock jerked in his hand exactly as it did at the gun range. Bang, bang, bang. Blood blossomed; glass on the minivan exploded; the woman fell forward, then, screaming, began to crawl away.
The bank robber was down, broken glass all around him. His handgun skittered away across the pavement from inert fingers. He lay sprawled, unmoving.
Glock held out in the firing position, Niall walked cautiously forward until he stood only feet from the man. There was one hell of a lot of blood. Dead, he thought coldly. His second dead body for the day. At least he’d only killed one of them.
This was also, however, his second shooting resulting in a fatality in the past year. The first was a crazy guy who’d intended to slit Jane’s throat. Niall had gotten there ahead of Duncan, so he’d been the one to take the shot. He’d as soon this didn’t become a habit, he reflected, in that weird way a mind worked at a moment like this.
Sirens rose to a crescendo. Police cars slammed to a halt blocking both exits from the bank parking lot. Officers leaped out and took cover. A lot of weapons were drawn on Niall.
Something made his glance slide sidelong to the broken windows of the minivan, and a monster of fear rose in him. There was a child car seat inside. A Mercedes-Benz of car seats, it occurred to him, even as he realized there was a kid in that seat, slumped forward. Blood was shockingly red against the dandelion-pale fluff of hair.
Please God, don’t let me have killed that kid.
THERE WERE ONLY A FEW mourners at Enid Cooper’s funeral. Her contemporaries were gone, or in assisted living. A couple of neighbors were there, and Rowan Staley and her father. Not Mom; she and Dad had separated and filed for divorce.
At least Rowan had persuaded her parents-in-law not to attend. She had been able to leave the kids with them. Maybe at six years old Desmond had been old enough to attend a funeral, but why should he have to? It wasn’t an open casket; Rowan wouldn’t have that. Gran had had a thing about dignity; she would have hated the idea of everyone filing past gazing at her wrinkled, dead face.
Gran’s tenant, whose name escaped Rowan, was here, too. When she’d seen him coming and going at Gran’s, he’d never stopped to introduce himself or anything like that.
